Names
Names aren’t just for people. Or objects. Or feelings. Names are important for experiences. They don’t necessarily resolve things, yet they can help point at them and acknowledge something’s going on. This is losing a friend. This is a loved one pushing me away. This is loss, and this is pain. This is a new possibility I’m allowed to screw up on with no shame. This is a tangled thought that’s going to need some time to explain. This is doubt, and this is endless daze. This is being so irrationally in love despite knowing it’s just a phase. This is allowing myself to obsess over it in the most unhealthy ways. This is denial. This is death. This is trying to fight back for just a single breath. This is burnout, and this is my body demanding to get some rest. This is a setting I so inexplicably detest. It brings back memories that trigger my every unconscious trauma response. And this is trauma. I get to call it that, no matter how much they stress on the fact that it makes no sense. This is my need to distance myself. This is missing someone and not being able to reach out. This is swallowing in the words I wish I could have said. This is trying to avoid potential feelings of regret. This is the kind of love I’m still unable to reciprocate. And this is the one I’d been waiting for, only that it came in a little too late. This is giving up before I experience what it’s like to fail. This is growth, and this is change. This is okay, because I finally get to give it a name. Names matter. They bring things into existence. They help people pause and listen. They make more room for feelings. They point at things we’ve long been concealing. And even though what can happen after varies to a large extent, something about being able to call experiences by their names, eases up so many parts on the way to healing.
